King of the Monsters

This past year, Classic Media began releasing the original Japanese Gojira movies on DVD (packed with the re-edited American versions).

Titles that Classic Media are licensed to distribute are:

• Gojira/Godzilla King Of The Monsters
• Godzilla Raids Again
• Mothra Vs Godzilla/Godzilla Vs The Thing
• Ghidorah The Three-Headed Monster
• Invasion of Astro Monster/Monster Zero
• All Monsters Attack/Godzilla's Revenge
• Terror of Mechagodzilla

It's hard to say what it is about these movies that I enjoy the most, but I would guess it's the man vs. nature aspect that really grabs me. Of course the aspect that man is fighting to control or destroy his own monstrous creation (a la Frankenstein's Monster) has it's attraction as well.

It's great to finally be able to see the original Japanese versions of these movies, especially when you can compare them back-to-back with the re-edited American versions to see just how badly Hollywood butchered them.

Well, I hope that Classic Media is able to purchase the rights to do the same treatement to to rest of the Gojira movies some time in the future.

Click on the image above (or here) to visit the site.

If this be Doomsday

I found out today that the next Marvel Comics movie based on the Fantastic Four comics will be "Rise of the Silver Surfer."


Now I've never been a huge fan of the Silver Surfer, but credit must be given to his place in the Marvel lexicon. And even though the first F4 movie wasn't a huge hit like the Spiderman or X-Men, I have to say that it was better than Daredevil, Elektra, Catwoman, or X-3.

The thing I find interesting on the movies web site, is that they make no mention of Galactus and instead make it sound like Dr. Doom is the main villain. Yet, you can't have the Silver Surfer without Galactus.

Well, I could go on with endless speculation, but I won't. Speculation spawns expectations, which Hollywood always seems to crush. So, I'll just sit and wait until it hits the theaters, and then pass judgement.

Until then, check out the trailer.

I dream of dragons...

I went to see Eragon tonight because I enjoy fantasy movies; movies like: Willow, the Lord of the Ring Trilogy, Beastmaster, Scorpion King, Conan, Excalibur, Star Wars, etc.


Eragon was a disappointment.

First off, I hate it when an untried director is called upon to direct a project that is so out of their league. The director, in this case Stefan Fangmeier--whose only prior directing experience was as the blue screen second unit director on Galaxy Quest, and Dreamcatcher--was definitely not up to the job in this case.

Only Jeremy Irons gave a performance worthy of the movie this should have been, and that was probably more due to the fact that he is that damn good, than anything else. John Malkovitch, on the other hand, was probably handicapped by the fact that he had so little to do in the film that he was never able to get into any groove to give his character any real emotion or presence.

The second thing that ticked me off is that the movie didn't have a budget big enough to create what I imagine the producers/studio were hoping for, a movie that could be ranked with LOTR and Harry Potter (epic movies based on a popular series of books). This is probably why they went with Fangmeier as director, Peter (Jurassic Park 3) Buchman as screen writer, and Patrick Doyle to score the movie (Doyle's not bad, but I don't rank all that high either). It would seem that the budget was probably spent to produce a dragon that didn't suck like Sony's Godzilla (better known as 'Zilla, or Jira, to the Godzilla prideful) which could only be brought out in the rain or at night.

Thirdly, the movie was dull and boring--and this, I would imagine, was due more to the screen writer's poor work than the director's poor directing. The pacing was slow and dull. There was not enough exposition in areas that needed them, and too much in areas that didn't. And the battles weren't exiting because we were never really involved and the staging wasn't all that great.

When the movie finally ended, I didn't have the same emotional reaction I had at the end of movies like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter for that matter. And it's that feeling that makes a person, well at least it does me, want to come back to the next chapter of the movie. But it wasn't there when as the final scenes played out and it went to credits.

It's sad to think that this could have probably been a great movie following what we've seen can be done, but in the end I would rate this slightly higher than Dungeons and Dragons: the movie, and some of my less-than-stellar role playing sessions.

Let's do the time warp again

I don't watch television much anymore so when I choose to start following a television series it's usually becasue I feel that it's pretty good.


Currently, there is a fun new show running on ABC called Day Break, it runs on the same premise as Groundhog Day, but centers on a cop and a mysterious conspiracy. Basically, Police Detective Kevin Hill (Taye Diggs) is caught in a time loop where he is being framed for a murder he didn't commit, and the people behind the conspiracy to frame him kill or threaten to kill the people closest to him (his girlfriend and his sister's family) to prove how serious they are.

Now, Detective Hill must relive that day over and over again while trying to save the ones he loves and prove his innocence at the same time. But here's the kicker, some things carry over each time the day rests: a note pad, and... any wounds he receives (so, presumably, if he dies... he dies). There is also evidence that some things he changes will stay permanent the next time time resets (Ep. 4: What If He Can Change the Day).

It's not exactly about time travel, but it's pretty close, and it's doing a better job of dealing with the concept than most shows, and the fact that wounds and injuries carry over from "day" to "day" keep him from doing anything stupid like the Phil Connors (Bill Murray) character in Groundhog Day; his ethics keep him from doing anything against his character as does the nasty thought of "what if it stops repeating".

If you haven't caught the show, you can (currently) catch this past season's episodes on ABC's Full Episode Player.

As for the shows I do regularly watch, they include:

• Day Break
• Lost (on hiatus)
• Nova

I tried to follow Jericho on CBS, but it just never really hooked me. Plus the fact that I don't have cable and my reception of the local CBS affiliate is pretty poor.

UPDATE:
As of December 13th, Day Break has been pulled from ABC due to falling ratings. According to TVSeriesFinale.com, "ABC has said they will post the remaining episodes online, with a new episode being posted every Thursday for the next seven weeks." However, when I checked last week, no new episodes have appeared.

To Wii, or not to Wii...

I've been contemplating picking up a Wii, but after recent reports of injuries and property damage I have to ask myself, "Is it really worth it?"


The benefits to owning a Wii:

• Download old NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, and Turbo Grafx games
• Backwards compatible with Game Cube games
• Novel controllers promote active gaming (get off the couch!)
• Least expensive of the new consoles

Drawbacks of owning a Wii:

• Large backlog of PS2 games will remain unplayed or unfinished
• Novel controllers are leading to user injuries and property damage
• Spending large amounts of cash to buy old Game Cube games
• Spending large amounts of cash to buy old NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, and Turbo Grafx games
• Spending large amounts of cash to buy storage media to store old NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, and Turbo Grafx games
• More time spent in front of the TV playing video games

Looks like there are more reasons not to buy the Wii than to buy it. But of all the things holding me back from buying the Wii, I would have to say that it's the large number of PS2 games that I own and have not finished... yet.

I suppose that once I have caught up with these, I will be more receptive to shelling out the cash to buy the Wii, but until then I'll stick with my trusty PS2 and it's games.

Oh, and about those Wii Controler problems I mentioned, check out these sites:

• Wii Damage
• Wii Have A Problem...

Grand plans for an old game

A year or two ago, I found an old Avalon Hill game at a Goodwill called Outdoor Survival. It had a large hex board depicting a large expanse of wilderness from which the objective was to find your way out before you succumbed to dehydration and starvation (Note: this is the first time I think I've encountered a game where you play against the board as opposed to against other players).

It wasn't the greatest game, nor was it something you'd end up pulling out to play on a regular basis, but I saw something else in the game.

As a diamond in the rough, I thought that it wouldn't take much to turn this game into a fantasy RPG board game. A grin crossed my face as this concept sank in and I decided that I would create this new game from the pieces of the old game. I wanted something that was akin to a Role Playing experience, but could also be played solo.

Unfortunately, I found myself spending so much time debating the different mechanics of the game (movement, combat, character & monster stats, etc.) that in the end nothing got done.

Eventually, I ran across an ad in a Dragon Magazine for a new game called Runebound. As soon as I saw the picture of the game's board I new that someone else had had pretty much the same idea, but had realized it while I had been trying to work on my own game.

Of course I eventually bought a copy of Runebound and found that it was indeed pretty much the same thing I was trying to create for the past year-and-a-half. I still laugh at the coincidence, and think that it could have been mine...

I do, on occasion, look back and wonder if it wouldn't be worth trying to finish what I started.

Game Night

In this day and age of video games, internet chat, and MMO's (Massive Multiplayer Online games) it's nice to know that you can still get your friends and acquaintances together to sit around a table and play games the old fashioned way--with cards, dice, and boards.

I've always had a fair number of games from the tried-and-true (Monopoly, Clue, Scrabble, Risk, etc.) to the more niche titles (Talisman, Legend of Camelot, Hero Quest, etc.), and for the longest time I would go to the store in search of new innovative games, but only seemed to find the same old Hasbro/Parker Brothers games only wrapped around some lame movie licences.

Now I admit that I am a video game junky. I own several old and new video game consoles and countless video game titles in addition to PC games. I even own a couple of those plug and play games (Namco 5-in-1 (w/ PacMan) and Texas Hold'em Poker).

However, over the past couple of years I have been starting to shift my gaming attention away from the console and PC gaming market back to "table top" gaming.

I think the shift started back around 2000/2001 when I got into "Mage Knight" and "Hero Clix", a collectible miniatures combat game put out by WizKids. However, I mark then shift with the purchase of "Runebound" because the WizKids games almost drove me away due to the collectible aspect which was causing me to bleed cash.

Runebound got my attention: #1, because it was an fantasy adventure game; and #2, because I was working on developing the exact same style of game (more on that in a later post). Soon after this I found the "Board Game Geek" website which showed me that there was so much more to gaming than Hasbro and Parker Brothers games. This eventually led me to meet a local guy, Jordal, who was looking for someone to game with.

Then Jordal introduced me to EuroGames (aka German style games, see excerpt below) like Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, among others.

Excerpt from Wikipedia:
German-style board games are a broad class of games that generally feature simple rules, attractive components, modest length, and an explicit theme. The games appeal to both older children and adults; their primary audience is casual gamers who play with their families and friends, though there is generally a greater degree of planning and thought required to play well than is the case with party games such as Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit.

Not all German-style board games are German, and not all German-style games are board games. As a result, various other names are offered for the class. Eurogames is a common, if similarly imprecise, description and because most such games feature the name of the designer prominently on the box they are sometimes known as designer games.

Last year, a couple of friends from Winona (now married with kid(s)) moved into town. We were all fans of role playing and games like Talisman, so they really liked it when I introduced them to Runebound and the hoard of other games I've picked up over the last few years.

Now we've started to get together with a few other friends on Thursday night to participate in an old fashioned gaming night with everyone sitting around the table having a fun time, win or loose.

I still play video games (currently Gladius and Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII), but at the rate the prices for the next gen console game market are inflating, I wouldn't be surprised if I shy away from it more and more and spend more time sitting with friends around the table playing more conventional games that don't require a two to six hundred dollar investment just to play them.

Plug In or Die!

I bought the "Who Killed the Electric Car" DVD last weekend and watched it the other night. I guess I can't say I'm supprised at the level of hypocracy in this country, but I'm still stunned at how blind most of us were (I was) to what was going on with the EV1 in California.

Personally, I am all for electric vehicles and public mass trasportation, and I hope that with gas prices on the rise and more recognition of the effects of global warming people might me more receptive in the next decade to electric vehicles or other alternatives.

Hello World (again)

Well, here's another attempt at blogging.

I have tried blogging several times over the years, though none have really turned out all that well. The main reason being that I just don't have that much to say about myself and/or what's going on (if anything) around or to me.

However, my past failures will not deter me.